PART III.
C. C. HINE—PERSONAL.
The following is personal to C. C. Hine, the writer’s father, and consists of extracts from a “private” book, from obituary notices, anecdotes, etc.
I have found it impossible to select words that give a true idea of my father’s character, it was so simple, so lovable, so pure, and yet so strong, and even rugged. He had a faith that nothing could shake. There was no room for doubt in his mind; his religion was to him an absolute fact, and when his wonderful strength of character and broad knowledge of the world are considered, this child-like trust was remarkable. As boy and man he received many hard knocks in the struggle for existence and had seen rough and trying times, but through it all he kept his mind clean and his love for his fellow-man bright.
Presumably he was always so—the testimony of his mother indicated it, and I have only recently discovered a private book which was never intended for other eyes, but which shows one of his phases so clearly that it is here quoted from at length.
November 20, 1852, Mr. Hine wrote in this book which he then started for the purpose of systematizing and keeping track of his giving: “Three weeks before the beginning of the present month, I came to a definite conclusion regarding a system of formal and regular giving for charitable and religious purposes, with which to govern my future course.”
He adopted a scale system whereby, if his income ever reached $14,000 he would give one-half of it away, and this was not intended to cover “occasional and irregular giving”.
At the time he made this covenant with himself he was receiving, in St. Louis, $800 per annum. On the 1st of November he removed to New Albany, Ind., and began again at $400 per annum, but on December 1st his income was increased to the rate of $600 per annum.
That he gave until it hurt him there is ample evidence, for we read in January, 1853: “I find myself very much straitened in many matters and greatly fear I will fall far behind my hopes of what I should save up for my visit home March 1st”; but his accounts show that he kept on giving.